Dear Chuck,

Thanks for these articulate thoughts. I’ve pretty much come to the end of my argument – my position is clear, as yours seems to be. Let me offer a few quick points and another clarification before my closing thought.

In a second post after your reply to me, you write: “Ken tells me that there are over 300 schools offering design related PhDs.”

The number 300 was not a statement about the number of PhD programs. The number 300 referred to the research standing of a specific university that university stands among the top 300 research universities of roughly 14,000 universities in the world today. The standing refers to the Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU), sometimes called the Shanghai Jiao Tong index. (SHJT).

There are many more than 300 design-related PhD programs, especially if you consider engineering design, informatics, HCI, animation, logistics, operations management, and other fields, along with specific design disciplines taught in faculties separate to a design faculty, including architecture and criticism. Determining the number of design-related PhD programs requires a definition of the term“design-related.” I was speaking only of one project at one university.

My point was that design lags behind other disciplines with respect to the quality of research programs in the field, even at universities ranked high for research in other disciplines.

To state that I am “in denial” makes it sound as though I’m an addict in need of intervention by my friends. Perhaps I am, but my views on this issue are based on extensive experience.

In the 1970s, I did consulting and editorial work for University Microfilms International, the predecessor to Proquest. Everyone who earns a PhD at an accredited university in North America files an abstract and usually a full thesis at Proquest. There are now over 2,000,000 PhD abstracts and 1.9 million full-text thesis projects on file in the Proquest database. There were fewer at the time I worked with the project. Even so, I still had the opportunity to review several thousand thesis projects across a number of fields in an effort to determine how to use thesis projects too specialized for a monograph from a regular publisher but too valuable to remain published only in thesis format.

The database must then have been somewhere around 1.5 million PhD theses. It yielded several hundred real treasures. Even so, the average thesis project was simple journeyman work. We found that on average, copies of most thesis projects were ordered 2.5 times in the first 2 years after completion with no orders everagain. While I suspect that a significant number of those orders were orders from the authors, the fact that there were no further orders is a statement by the field itself, not a judgment on my part.

Even more significant, we found that there was no way to determine from the abstract whether or not the thesis would actually be of great value. A thesis abstract describes the findings – it may be technically correct, yet the thesis may in fact be relatively valueless with respect to anything other than a few sentences ofbottom-line results. In the humanities and social sciences, in fact, even these may be relatively without value, even though a committee may find the method and work reasonable enough to award a PhD. With a few exceptions, a PhD thesis is a beginner’s project. In 75% of all cases, it is the last or next-to-last research project the author will ever write.

In the forty years since I did that work, I have been an editor of and advisor to mny reference works. I remain an editorial advisor to the ArtBibliographies Modern database of literature in art and design, and a board member or editor of half a dozen journals. I base my views on a broad overview of the available literature in the field.

Simply put, I know the literature of the design fields – and especially the massive load of PhD thesis projects. As in most fields, there are a few brilliant projects – most of these go on to book or journal publication. There is a large number of competent projects, and some go on to publication. Then there is a vast pool of average to slightly below average work. Most of this is never published, and publishing it would not help the field. Mining the bibliographies of these thesis projects and reproducing their abstracts will not serve the field. Instead, it will add to the problem of information overload, the avalanche of redundant and irrelevant information that hinders progress in many fields and misleads inexperienced researchers and research students. My argument against the proposal is that in practice, it will hinder the very people you hope to help.

In a Core77 blog post a couple years back, Don Norman (2010) wrote: “I am forced to read a lot of crap. As a reviewer of submissions to design journals and conferences, as a juror of design contests, and as a mentor and advisor to design students and faculty, I read outrageous claims made by designers who have little understanding of the complexity of the problems they are attempting to solve or of the standards of evidence required to make claims. Oftentimes the crap comes from brilliant and talented people, with good ideas and wonderful instantiations of physical products, concepts, or simulations. The crap is in the claims.”

The vast majority of journal and conference submissions come from designers with a PhD. In my view, mining their bibliographies will not yield the value you believe that it will. More of the same will not give a better yield without significant improvements. This is an elitist position in a political sense. It represents a focus on quality and on mastering research skills before publishing.

While this view may be disappointing, I can meet one request that you make. I have posted the resources you request on Academia.edu.

You write, “Ken's suggestion that using what is already accessible through sources like the Library of Congress, the British Library, academia.edu, university libraries, etc. is very welcome. In my opinion a guide to their use and links or guides to their services should be made available to students in every PhD program. … He seems to have access to the financial means to produce that and make it available through academia.edu or some other repository.”

These resources already exist. No one needs to fund them or produce them. Nine reasonably priced paperback books contain the needed material. Any design school doctoral program can buy the full set from Amazon for $235. Doctoral students smart enough to want a set of their own can buy used copies for much less.

For over a decade, I’ve been posting these books or the best books like them to discussion lists. The problem is not the material: it exists and it is excellent. The problem is that doctoral supervisors in design-related PhD programs do not make these resources available to students. Too many fail to provide training in basic research skills.

Every time I post a skills note to PhD-Design, I get off-list notes from people who wishthat their programs or supervisors provided these kinds of resources. Aftermany such notes over the years, I remain glad to know that people find these resources useful. I would be happier still to learn that our many supervisors taught the students what they need to know to become skilled researchers.

For every student who recognizes that he or she needs skills and experiences not on offer in a PhD program, many assume they are getting the skills they need. This is why Don Norman finds himself “forced to read a lot of crap.” Intelligent, skilled designers could do far more research and better research with proper training. This requires high quality supervision and coaching for mastery. In effect, a master teacher is an elitist, and a great master teacher helps his or her students to join the elite.

For now, I have uploaded a paper to Academia.edu with the resources and sources you request. The title is: “Ken Friedman Summary Statements from the UK AHRC Practice-Led Review Conference.” I’ve placed it just after the first four papers on design and design research. The article on theory construction also offers useful information on research skills and how to deploy them.

My page is located at URL:

http://swinburne.academia.edu/KenFriedman

For now, I’ve said all I have to say. My position is clear. Your position is clear.

At this point, there is only one way to find out whether your proposal works. Build it, and see whether it helps the field. My view is that it will not, but my view should not stop you. If you are convinced and if you can convince others to work with you, you ought to pursue the necessary funds and resources to make this project happen.

Despite my extensive experience, four decades of professional work in research publishing and research database projects may have rendered me blind to new ways of thinking.

There is one way to demonstrate that I am in denial and that your approach will work. Build it.

Yours,

Ken

Ken Friedman, PhD, DSc (hc), FDRS | University Distinguished Professor | Swinburne University of Technology | Melbourne, Australia | [log in to unmask] | Mobile +61 404 830 462 | Home Page http://www.swinburne.edu.au/design/people/Professor-Ken-Friedman-ID22.html<http://www.swinburne.edu.au/design>

Guest Professor | College of Design and Innovation | Tongji University | Shanghai, China

References

Norman, Don. 2010. “Why Design Education Must Change.” Core77, 26 November, 2010. URL:
http://www.core77.com/blog/columns/why_design_education_must_change_17993.asp





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